US Gov't Tells Developing Nations That Patents & High Prices Are Good For The Health Of Their Citizens
from the oh-really-now? dept
There have been plenty of studies showing how -- especially in developing nations -- patents for pharmaceuticals serve to keep important drugs (which are cheap to manufacture) out of reach of the patients who need them most. In large part, because of this, various world bodies have accepted the idea that nations may decide to ignore patents in the interest of public health and safety. And that appears to work and be helpful. For example, we were just discussing how such generic copies were helpful in massively reducing the price of key drugs in India. And, no, this did not mean that the original manufacturer was unable to profit. This was on a drug where the company (Bayer) had made many times over its investment around the globe already, yet was still pricing the drug at over $5,000, while the generics were coming in at between $100 and $200.There have been so many studies on this that you'd have to be either ignorant or deceitful to suggest that such a plan was a problem.
So I'm trying to figure out which adjective should apply to the USPTO, who recently gave a talk to a WIPO committee on the issue of patents and health, in which they argued that such efforts actually did more harm than good, and the way to keep people safe in developing countries was to increase patent protection:
There is no easy solution to these problems. Reducing patent protection is not likely to solve these thorny issues.... To the contrary, the lack of effective patent protection can be one of the many factors which prevent the appropriate medicines from reaching the neediest patients in DC and LDCs. Weakening the patent rights granted to pharmaceutical researchers and manufacturers in certain markets not only removes or reduces the incentive to develop new medicines, but also reduces the incentives for innovative medicine developers to invest in those countries and harness their innovation to solving the public health challenges that disproportionately affect developing countries, and are not being solved in other ways.This statement is hogwash. First of all, there's nothing stopping these companies from profiting greatly in the developed world with these drugs, as they do already. And the idea that they wouldn't, say, invest in India if they could only get $100 per drug rather than $5,000... well, who cares? Considering how much more of these drugs they'd sell at those lower prices, there would still be plenty of profit to go around. Apparently, the folks at the USPTO have never learned a thing about price elasticity. Second, if a big pharma is too stupid to know how to provide drugs (which are relatively cheap to manufacture) at a reasonable cost for a profit, it seems pretty freaking natural that other companies are willing to step in and offer generics. So, really, why should anyone care if, say, Bayer decides to ignore India because it wants $5,000 for pills that others are willing to sell at $120? We're talking about the health and safety of the public, not Bayer.
Weakening patent protection for innovative medicines is not a productive approach to improving availability of health care, because many other factors other than patents more directly affect the availability of medicines.This is a nice bit of sleight of hand, confusing correlation with causation. No one says that a lack of patents means that such drugs are automatically made available in every market. But it takes a truly demented view of the world to take that fact and assume that such drugs would be more widely available if only those non-patented drugs were in fact covered by patent.
The proof of the weakness of that argument is that although most medicines on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines are not protected by patents, their availability in many markets is still limited. This is particularly true in DC/LDCs. Many other factors affect the availability of all medicines, patented or not.
From there, the USPTO proposed a study to show how wonderful patents are in getting drugs to poor countries, to "restore balance to the discussion by evaluating the role of patent protection in providing incentives for research and development...." Funny how they were just talking about drugs that were off-patent not being available... but now they ignore that and it's all about new drug development. But, more seriously, I find it absolutely hilarious that the USPTO wants to talk about "restoring balance." This is an organization that has always pushed for "more patents" at pretty much any cost. The whole software industry is facing a massive crisis of gridlocked development over bogus patents. If we're going to start "restoring balance" to the patent system, let's start at home.
This kind of stuff is really sickening, because it's basically the USPTO saying that poor people around the globe should suffer and die if helping them doesn't produce enough profits for big pharmaceutical conglomerates. I don't know how people taking that position can sleep at night.
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Filed Under: developing nations, generic drugs, pharmaceutical patents, uspto, who, wipo
Companies: bayer
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Evil Bastards!
Apparently, if little lies don't get the job done then one needs to switch to much bigger lies.
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Re: Evil Bastards!
I Hate Our Government !!! You are a Cancer.
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Whores?
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A big ass pile of money is surprisingly comfy.
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its AT&T!
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Easy, they take Ambien.
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Re:
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The full moon was last weekend.. what in the world is going on?
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And that the only way for MS to beat Google is to DCMA them to death.
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Let's see if the politics of the "developing nations"* are as totally corrupt as the politics of the USof$ and the people of the "developing nations"* are as mentally controlled as the people of the USof$.
Do any of you actually think that these people give a flying fuck about anything other than money?
*Given whom we’re talking about, we know immediately that "developing nations" can only mean "financially developing nations".
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Could you expect anything else?
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Re: Master Blaster
Legitimacy is derived from recognition of other States.
Recognition from a State is granted when a tentative State displays sufficient military/economic/diplomatic (etc) power to possibly threaten said State.
QED: The US is a "Legitimate" country.
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so who wrote this horse shit paper and who read it out? two different people, i'll bet!
how any company that makes products to keep people alive, fight illness or to improve peoples health can have such scant regard for those same people, without whom the companies wouldn't exist, is beyond me
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Re: Ginger Games
And after that, you'll have nothing to worry about.
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Re: Re: Ginger Games
``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''
``But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.
``It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. ``It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
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But the way I look at it, I'd rather pay the $10 I could barely afford for a 50% of improvement, rather then the unaffordable $500 which would lead to a 0% improvement.
This also sort of reminds me of that old joke about the guy that went into a store and sees pencils for $1 millon each. He says to the storekeeper, "You'll never sell many of those", to which the storekeeper replies "I only need to sell 1."
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Re: Re:
The 50% was a number pulled out of my ass to represent a 50/50 chance I'd get a fake (placebo) or inefficient drug due to lack of regulation/oversight, which is what I think the big drug companies are trying to claim will happen. Also assuming that the "real" drug has a 100% chance of recovery.
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Funny, I remember a time when medical doctors used to recommend cigarettes to people. Just because they said or believed it, doesn't make it any more true.
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lawl....cry
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Re: lawl....cry
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Re: reset button on the USA
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Re:
...wait for it.........
00.01, yes that is a PENNY, one onehundrendth of a US Dollar, Granted that was 7 years ago so maybe it has inflated to 00.02$ now with inflation and all, I was making 18.00$ running the press. the "small" company I worked for only made 6 million $ Profit a year.
Reminder we did R&D in house and that WAS figured into cost of production.
(and yes, I did quit my job,due to insomnia)
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Re: Re:
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30000 dollar gold toilet
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Wait what?
Find a niche, fill it, then work to improve those around you.
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Yeah... it's true... For those people Who can ACTUALLY afford them in those nation.
For those other people below a certain class level, especially the poor and the homeless, They're expected to die a slow but painful death by these pharmaceutical companies who only think of their own PROFIT than to SAVE lives...
Just make sure you fools can stomach the fact that you just SENTENCE at least a HUNDRED, if not a THOUSAND man, woman and children to their deaths just to save a HANDFUL, I repeat, a HANDFUL in those developing countries.
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Who cares about the health and safety of the public, pharmaceutical profits are all that matter.
and no one responsible for this in the U.S. was punished.
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also make it very clear that you either don't understand the argument that you're criticizing, or you're being dishonest.
The vast majority of drug R&D fails. The vast majority of ideas and targets fail. Therefore, to have a drug industry at all, it simply must be the case that successful drugs pay not just for themselves, but for all the failures, so they must pay for themselves many times over.
The drug industry does not make enormous profits. Not on the total amount of capital invested. (And no, complaining about marketing and advertising driving up price is generally silly as well; both of those things are supposed to make money, not cost it.)
Of course the drug industry makes the argument about future drugs. That's the only reason argument in favor of patents.
One reason why the drug companies concentrate on drugs that treat lifestyle diseases or simply diseases of the fairly well-off is that they know that those will be paid for. Drugs that affect diseases of developing countries they know people like you will advocate for reduced prices and reduce patent protection as soon as they are invented. Time consistency is a tricky concept.
Either argument could be correct, but do realize, Mike, that if the argument about future drug production is correct, that you are the one condemning more people to die in the future because of wanting to save a smaller number of people today.
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ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Patents and copyright laws ARE the GODDAMN reason why we have economic crysis.
Just watch the movie called RIP: A Remix Manifesto. Youll see my point.
Get started here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdwN6rRU0Xk&feature=relmfu
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Re:
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Forget this old motto. Bayer's real motto should be "profits over people."
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The true innovators risk their companies, their employees, their investors and ultimately thousands of patients on the often thin hope that their drug will work. It is a horrible calculus, pricing today's treatment to develop tomorrow's cure. A long list of diseases flourish because no one can finance the development of the "orphan" drugs available to treat them.
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denial or cynicism?
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